Participants of the five-day productivity training
The National Productivity and Competitiveness Centre (NPCC) has reported that 53% of revenue generated in the country is used to pay approximately nine hundred and eighty thousand (980,000) public servants. This has, however, become unsustainable. To remedy this, either of these two things need to happen. Public servants will be required to enhance their productivity hence produce more resources for public use or the Government may have to effect retrenchment measures. It is against this background that Karatina University, through the division of Planning, Finance and Administration, is holding a five-day Productivity Measurement and Development of Productivity Metrics Training for top management, Deans, Directors, Heads of Departments/Section and other administrative staff. The training which started today, Monday, 14th August, 2023 is facilitated by officers from NPCC, a Department under the State Department for Labour in the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. The aim is to entrench a culture of productivity through the development, implementation and adoption of strategies and interventions that will enable the University to measure, manage and improve productivity.
Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Linus Gitonga, giving his remarks
The Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Linus Gitonga, has been at the forefront in championing for performance improvement in all aspects of University operations. In his remarks, he underscored the need for the senior managers, and the staff working under them, to be productive in order to achieve the set targets and objectives of the institution. According to him, being productive will, in turn, lead to building formidable individuals, departments, sections and University.
“The Government is keen on improving the productivity of public servants. In the same vein, we should also aim at enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in our operations. One such area that I am particularly keen on is the digitization of processes in line with the President’s directives.” This, he said, in reference to the directive to have all Government services populated in the E-Citizen portal and the requirement to use one paybill number for all Government payments.
Further, the Ag. VC stated that the senior managers will be trained on how to craft better reports that are presented during meetings. Such reports would, in turn, promote effective administration of meetings due to less time taken to discuss a tabled report. This is because such a report would have adopted the 5Ws+H which are imperative for drafting effective reports. This refers to asking or answering questions on the parameters of ‘Who’ ‘What’, ‘Why’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ and ‘How’. At the end of the training, he challenged the participants, a lot more will be expected of them especially in terms of drafting and implementing Performance Contracts and the Strategic Plan.
The University top management together with the training facilitators
The Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor (Planning, Finance and Administration), Prof. Richard Kiai, stated that organizational objectives can only be achieved if everyone worked as a team. This is due to the fact that University policies and guidelines may variously be interpreted by different individuals but that a training provides a platform to understand one another and to move together as a team in terms of pursuing the University Vision and Mission. He also noted that training helps in rethinking strategy and how to develop productivity metrics which will lead to a productive organization. It was for that reason that the ongoing training has targeted staff from both the academic and administrative sections as well as representatives from the staff Union Chapters.
On her part, the Acting Vice Chancellor in charge of Academic, Research and Student Affairs, Prof. Helen Kamiri, challenged the participants to boldly imagine where the University should be heading to and create a pathway towards its achievement. She called upon the managers to do and give the best in order to achieve better outcomes. Actions that are impactful and fit for purpose will bring about personal and institutional growth, she noted.
The week-long training is led by Mr. Miano Kariuki, a Director at NPCC together with officers from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC). Among the areas to be covered include productivity management, factors affecting productivity, productivity metrics, development of productivity metrics, productivity measurement tools, weighting of metrics and validation of metrics. Participants will, thereafter, be required to draft an implementation framework/roadmap.